(Decanter) - Winemakers in California's Paso Robles have applied to split the 24-hectare American Viticultural Area into 11 new sub-appellations to highlight its diversity to consumer.

The 59-member Paso Robles grower and vintner alliance has applied to the US Tobacco, Tax & Trade Bureau (TTB) to create all the new sub-appellations.

It marks another step by producers in their attempt to improve the region’s reputation, having once been known for a focus on inexpensive bulk wine, especially Zinfandel.

It is hoped that political infighting can be avoided via the unusual tactic of submitting all 11 applications at once.

‘We wanted science to prevail over politics in defining the boundaries of the new appellations,’ said Steve Lohr, chairman and chief executive of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, the largest producer in the Paso Robles American Viticultural Area (AVA).

‘And we wanted to avoid future boundary skirmishes and confusing overlapping appellations that can occur when AVAs are proposed one at a time.’

The current Paso Robles AVA, established in 1983, borders the Santa Lucia coastal mountain range to the west, Monterey County to the north and Santa Margarita to the south.

Lohr said it is ‘one of the most diverse series of soils of any winegrowing region in the US’.